Hamao Umezawa Memorial Award
This is the highest award given by ISAC for outstanding contributions in the field of antimicrobial chemotherapy. It is generously sponsored by the Microbial Chemistry Research Foundation of Japan.
Professor Umezawa had a brilliant career and made many key discoveries in the fields of antibiotics, anticancer drugs and immunomodulators over many years. The discoveries of kanamycin (1957), josamycin (1967) and bleomycin (1965) were perhaps his most outstanding successes.
The first of his 12 antibiotic discoveries dates from 1949, the first of his 18 anticancer drugs from 1953 and the first of his enzymes inhibitors from 1969. Professor Umezawa received many accolades and honorary doctorates, and was even honoured by the Vatican. He was a great supporter of the ISC and a kind host to many foreign visitors to the Microbial Chemistry Research Foundation, of which he was the director.
Please click here for a list of all previous awardees and their lecture titles.
Purpose
The award is intended to honour individual researchers, scientists or clinicians who have made outstanding contributions in the field of antimicrobial chemotherapy. The award may be given for individual pieces of meritorious work or to honour an outstanding career in antimicrobial chemotherapy.
Award
The award of 10,000 Swiss Francs, a certificate and a medal will be bestowed upon the successful nominee at the 32nd International Congress of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ICC) in Perth, Australia, November 2022. The awardee will also deliver a Keynote lecture.
2026 Awardee
Prof. Vance Fowler
We are delighted to announce Professor Vance Fowler as the 2026 awardee.
Prof. Fowler is Florence McAlister Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University. Prof. Fowler's research in S. aureus and antibacterial resistance has led to over 20 years (1999-2026) of continuous NIH funding as PI. He has been Contact PI of the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG) since its inception in 2013.
Under Prof. Fowler's leadership, the ARLG went from creation in 2013 to over 40 studies involving over 25,000 patients from over 130 sites in 12 countries producing over 120 publications and 2 FDA approvals. He created the S. aureus Bacteremia Group, the world's largest prospective biorepository of S. aureus bacteremia. He co-founded the International Collaboration on Endocarditis (ICE), and published the critical observation that S. aureus is now the leading cause of endocarditis in the industrialised world.
He was lead (daptomycin, 2006) and senior (ceftobiprole, 2023) author on the only Phase 3 trials that successfully achieved an FDA indication for S. aureus bacteremia. He received the Clinical Research Achievement Award for publishing one of the top ten clinical research papers in the US in 2012, and the Translational Research Mentoring Award from Duke University School of Medicine in 2018. He has over 450 peer reviewed publications, over 40,000 citations, and a Web of Science h-index of 94.
Register for the ICC 2026 to hear Prof. Fowler's lecture on Bridging the Gap: From Staphylococcus aureus Benchmarks to Breakthrough Clinical Trials
2024 Awardee
Prof. Gunnar Kahlmeter presented the opening plenary lecture at the 33rd International Congress of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ICC) on “The quirks of the EUCAST susceptibility testing system” in Istanbul, Turkey (3 - 6 November 2024).
2022 Awardee
Prof. Patel presented the HUMA plenary lecture on "Microbial Theranostics – A Resistance Combatting Strategy" at the 32nd ICC in Perth, Australia. Watch the on-demand lecture here.
Please click here for a list of all previous awardees and their lecture titles.
